Energy alternatives.

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Introduction

As I have already explained earlier, the sources of energy are usually grouped into two types, one being the renewables (the ones which will not run out) and the other being the non-renewables (these are ones which will run out and include oil, gas and coal, known as the fossil fuels).

Rather than using more of the renewables, we tend to rely more on the non-renewables, and we have now realised that we are using our fossil fuels at a much faster rate than we should be, which will make them eventually run out: first oil, then gas, and finally coal. Clearly, the world needs new forms of energy. Making alternative forms of useful energy is very expensive and often very inconvenient. Nobody at the moment has captured the waves of the world on a large scale, and we do not have enough land to grow our own plants and use them for all our energy needs.

Eventually, change will have to come, but nobody yet knows how or when.

In order to generate electricity, you need to turn a generator. Traditionally, this has been done by burning fuels to boil water to make steam, which turns the turbine, which then turns the generator.

Another alternative in generating electricity is to harness some type of movement to turn the generator ie. The wind, waves, falling water.

Wind Energy

The wind is one of the most promising of the renewable energy sources. It can be used for a number of purposes, like producing electricity, or pumping water. Many countries are developing wind power technology, especially those countries whose geography means they get a lot of wind.

It is also known that the UK is one of the windiest countries in Europe and so it makes sense to harness the energy. It is also cheap to harness.

The disadvantages of using wind power are that it only works efficiently in windy places. Because the wind does not blow all the time, we would need to use a battery technology to store the energy, which is expensive to do.

For large amounts of energy, many generators covering a large area are needed. Because the wind turbines are large, some people object to the idea of them dotting the landscape.

In hot, equatorial areas there is another potential means of gaining energy from the oceans, by using the temperature difference between the layers of water. This method is called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC).

OTEC devices use warm surface water to heat up and vaporise a fluid with a low boiling point, like ammonia. The moving vapour drives a turbine, generating electricity. Cold water is then used to cool the vapour and condense it back to ammonia for recirculating.

By using these alternatives, we could get enough energy and electricity in this way, but we have a long way to go and cutting down the amount of energy we waste will help a lot.

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